After over a decade of not adopting touch displays on its Mac notebook lineup, Apple will finally be releasing its first touchscreen MacBook as early as November 6th, after announcing it as early as October 27th.
Of course, rumors are rumors – though essentially every reputable source has aligned on the idea of the MacBook Pro gaining support for touch very shortly. Apple even left a few hints in macOS 27: Touch Support in Sidecar, pull to refresh support, and slightly bigger menu bar items.
One could call all of this a mere coincidence, but it’s probably exactly what it looks like. Regardless, here’s what the first touchscreen MacBook will have to offer.
OLED, Dynamic Island
On the display panel side of things, the redesigned MacBook Pro will come with a Tandem OLED display. This will be similar to the iPad Pro, which is often touted as one of the best mobile displays on the market. Tandem OLED comprises of stacked OLED panels, which allows for incredible colors, strong contrast, and increased brightness.
Reports also suggest it’ll come with a Dynamic Island, and it’ll be a bit smaller than the one on the iPhone. It won’t, however, come with support for Face ID.
Software optimizations
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple will have some special optimizations for the first touchscreen MacBook Pro, beyond what’s already visible in the betas of macOS 27:
“For instance, if users touch a button or control, the interface will bring up a new type of menu surrounding their finger that provides more relevant options for touch commands.
The software will also display the most appropriate set of controls based on users’ prior interaction. And if a person taps an item in the menu bar at the top of the screen, the set of controls will enlarge to be more easily selectable with a finger.”
M5 Pro and M5 Max chips
Despite initial reporting suggesting that we’ll be seeing the debut of the M6 Pro and Max in the redesigned MacBook Pro, Apple is now skipping the release of those chips to accelerate the M7. This means that the first iteration of 2nm chips won’t be making their way to the redesigned MacBook Pros, and they’ll instead offer the existing M5 Pro and M5 Max chips.
There won’t be a base model version of this computer quite yet, though rumors suggest that Apple will be launching a base version of the redesigned MacBook Pro with an M7 chip as early as next spring.
Slightly thinner chassis, significantly lighter
One design rumor for the new MacBook Pro is the fact that it’ll be slightly slimmer and lighter – though it’s unclear how meaningful this will be. The last MacBook Pro iteration made the computers look and feel quite chunky, so a bit of progress here would likely be welcome – so long as it doesn’t come at the compromise of thermals.
Bloomberg has also reported that these computers will be ‘significantly lighter,’ thanks to re-engineering of internal components.
Release date
According to the Power On newsletter, Apple will potentially release these new MacBook Pro models on November 6th, making a straight four weeks of new Apple launches with iPhone Duo, HomePod mini 2, the new MacBook Pro, and HomeView + Apple TV 4K.
As of now, there’s no Apple release scheduled for November 6th, so it would make sense to be the new MacBook Pro:
Now, I have a little more to share: Apple is planning to hold a “reset” at its retail stores on the evening of Thursday, Nov. 5, into Friday, Nov. 6, that implies new signage and products will be placed on store tables. Given that this Friday is a week after the Mac announcements (when Apple would typically release products), it would make sense that this is the date when at least some of the new items become available to customers.
My favorite Apple accessory recommendations:
- Anker Ultra-Slim MagSafe Battery Pack
- AirPods Pro 3 (2x ANC vs AirPods Pro 2!)
- Anker Nano 45W Fast Charger with Smart Display
- Anker Prime 3-in-1 25W Compact MagSafe Charger
- Logitech MX Master 4 Mouse for Mac
- AirTag 2 4-pack (50% improved Precision Finding!)
- Belkin MagSafe 3-in-1 Charging Stand for iPhone
- MOFT MagSafe Kickstand Wallet for iPhone
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